SAO: Insert Catchy Title
by Bladelight25
Summary: All he wanted was to play the game, to go down in history with the other 10,000 players, but what happens when the game turns into reality. Uh Find out by looking inside, Just click that link right there.


**LINK START**

"_Alright then let's go," I said grabbing his shoulder and leading him out of the shop. "What's your name new best buddy of mine?"_

_I could tell he wasn't too thrilled to hear that we were becoming buddies._

_**NOVEMBER 6, 2022**_

_**12:53 P.M.**_

I looked at the clock in my bedroom window, _just seven minutes._ After months of waiting it was finally here. Sword Art Online or SAO for short was going to become the first in what I hoped would be a long line of Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games.

I spun my chair around at a knock from the door. "What," I asked striding across my room to open the door for my brother.

"I'm going to work. I'll be back late so don't wait up, and don't stay on that game all day. Dad will be pissed if he comes home to find you still in here."

"Alright, be careful" I replied, before closing the door. _Three minutes_, I thought checking the clock once more.

I walked to the closet, pulling the NerveGear out of the pile of clothes I'd tossed on it. It's blue surface reflecting light from the lamp. Walking back across the room I sat it down on the bed, while taking the cable and plugging it into the wall. _Two Minutes._

I popped my neck joints before lying down on the bed, punching the pillow with my fist to bend it to my will. Switching the helmet on I placed it upon my head, noticing that my hair had fallen over my eyes. _Man, I need a haircut_. Looking in the top left of the helmet I realized It was 12:59. _It can wait till later._

As I laid there I could feel my chest begin to tighten with anxiety. I closed my eyes, taking slow breaths to calm myself. _I should have taken a leak first,_ I thought noticing the urge. Opening my eyes I checked the clock again, counting down the seconds.

_10…_

_9…_

_8…_

_7…_

I sighed, my countdowns never ended at the right moment I realized, noticing the clock had changed.

"LINK START!"

A swirl of colors and lights instantly filled my vision. I barely had time to notice a pinch in my left finger, before my vision was blinded with more colors, and my ears were picking up the sound of something beeping. Taste was the last one, I couldn't place it but it felt familiar.

Eventually I arrived in a black room with three screens floating aimlessly. Character Customization, was one of my favorite parts of the RPG genre. Moving towards one of the screens, I was momentarily stunned with the incredible detail the designers allowed a person to go into. The sheer amount of options was incredible. Realizing that I was wasting time, I quickly selected the more obvious of the first two options, male. I'd seen people in other MMO's, who had played as the opposite gender before, creepy.

After changing my height an inch or two, and making the jaw line a little more defined I quickly clicked accept. The next screen was one I'd always dreaded in video games. Name your character. Luckily for me most games had a random button that would pull up a list of names and I could choose from it. Apparently Argus wasn't like that, no they wanted you to be original and come up with something on your own. _Assholes_. I quickly ran through a list of names I'd used in other games, throwing each one into the proverbial trashcan as soon as it entered my mind. _Sucks. Really Sucks. Definitely not that one. _Once again realizing that I was wasting precious time, I entered the first thing that popped into my head, before quickly deleting it for lack of originality. "Damn it!" _Rift, yeah Rift sounds decent, let's go with Rift,_ I thought to myself before hitting the accept button before I could change my mind.

**WELCOME TO SWORD ART ONLINE!**

"Why thank you, nice computer….thingy."

My field of vision was once again filled with colors and lights before I felt something solid beneath my feet. I opened my eyes before quickly shutting them once more. _Bright, very bright_. I blinked them open a few times to adjust to the light before taking the time to look around. What I saw instantly took my virtual breath away. It was unlike anything I'd seen before and the detail was unbelievable, right down to the cracks in the pavement. I was standing in the middle of what I could only assume was the town plaza, and I was quickly being surrounded by other players with more logging in every few seconds. I swung my arms experimentally, before I took off, sprinting through the crowds of people like a madman. I didn't know where I was going but it felt amazing.

After running around for several minutes I decided to take a break. It wasn't that I was tired, I was and athlete I could run several miles….give or take the miles part. No I'd come to realize that I was lost. Completely and utterly lost…in the middle of the very first town. I was pathetic…and I didn't have a weapon.

"No," I quickly realized. I was awesome, how many people could say they got lost within the first few minutes of a game? I'd definitely broken some kind of record, of that I was certain. Therefore I had decided that I was just flat out amazing. At least, until I ran into a crowd of people in what I believed was the market district. That was when I once again realized that I didn't have a weapon. I hadn't really given much thought to what I'd wanted to play as. I knew there weren't any archers in the game, nor was there any kind of magic. I'd never really played the sword and shield before. It just seemed so stale, but the massive broadsword builds, that was something else entirely.

"Hey, do you mind pointing me towards a weapons shop or a blacksmith," I asked the first person I made eye contact with. He looked at me strangely before pointing up. I followed his line of sight, praying that it wasn't so. Alas it was, for we were standing right outside the shop! "Right," I muttered under my breath before heading inside.

As what would be expected from a first floor shop, most of the items were pretty low quality. The durability on them was great but the damage output was mediocre at best. I quickly moved through the shop shifting my eyes from aisle to aisle trying to find something that would pique my interest. I could appreciate the fact that without archers or magic, a lot of players that relied on that kind of build would lean towards agile weapons, apparently the designers did too. In the first aisle alone there was an in-explainable amount of daggers and other short one-handed weapons. The second aisle followed suit with short swords and slim blade that reminded me of samurai weapons. The third aisle was clearly intended for tanks. Tanks were players who relied heavily on being able to take a hit and still be standing. In most games the real advantage came when fighting tougher enemies, the tanks would take all the hits while the more agile players dealt as much damage as possible. Therefore by that reasoning alone aisle three contained shields, shields, and wouldn't you know it more shields.

At the back of the store stood the counter and a man who I assumed was the owner of said store. "Can I help you find something?"

"Hopefully," I answered. "You wouldn't happen to have broadswords or larger weapons here would you?" He looked at me quizzically before repeating his welcome slogan. I was quickly becoming irritated with the simpleton of a man. "Look, can you help me or not?"

"He's just a simple NPC, one of the first they put in the beta. I would have thought they'd have expanded his dialogue but it doesn't seem like it."

I swirled around quickly almost knocking over a row of spears in the process." And who are you," I asked.

He raised his eyebrows at the tone of my voice," Me? I'm nobody, just another player passing through." I lowered my guard, we were still in town and it was the first day. _No need to piss anybody off, _I thought. "But I did overhear you say that you wanted a broadsword. Is that correct?" I nodded slowly, a grin creeping across my face.

"Well there's another market a couple blocks west of here, a lot of players have been setting up over there already. "

"Alright then let's go," I said grabbing his shoulder and leading him out of the shop. "What's your name new best buddy of mine?"

I could tell he wasn't too thrilled to hear that we were becoming buddies," My name? It's nothing important really. No need to make friends on the first day…right?" I stared him down, not giving an inch; he was going to be the first person on my friends list. Apparently my stare was more persuasive than I gave it credit for. "Diavel, what about you?"

"You can call me Rift," I laughed; I knew he would see my way of things. "So which way again, my blue haired buddy?"

"Follow me," he sighed.

"Okay, so what's the deal with these 'Sword Skills'?"

Diavel groaned in frustration for the third time since we'd left the walls of the city. Having bought a weapon, and 'forcing' Diavel to give me some tips, we now stood in an open field on the south side of town. I knew I was starting to get on his nerves, but it was just too easy. Glaring at me, he pulled his sword from its sheath whilst raising his shield to cover his front. He turned to face the lone mob we'd stumbled upon, a Frenzy Boar. "This…is a Sword Skill," he stated, bending his knees slightly while pulling his sword back and slightly above his shield. His sword started to glow a deep green before he let out a shout, crossing the 20ft in the span of a single second. The only sign that he'd even hit the creature was the red gash that had appeared on its fur, before it disappeared in a flash of polygons.

My blood started pulsing with excitement; I couldn't wait to try it myself. " Teach me! Teach me! Teach me", I cried in a begging voice. "How'd you do it?" I pulled my own weapon from where it rested on my back. It wasn't the broadsword I'd wanted, or the one that had been advertised on the cover of the game, but it would work for now. I brought my sword back towards my shoulder, holding it horizontally with a two-handed grip like I was going to stab something. I held my pose for several seconds before I realized that nothing was happening. "What gives?"

Diavel looked at my stance and shrugged. "Maybe you need to have a target, OR maybe you could wait till I finish explaining," he offered with a hint of irritation in his words. It wasn't my fault! How could someone NOT want to try it immediately after seeing it? Unfortunately he was right. I'm sure I would have been able to learn it on my own, eventually, but why waste a free tutoring session. "Fine, start explaining, oh wise one."

"Great! So basically Sword Skills are activated upon the players' initial motion. If you can get the first move right, and wait for the right moment to release it, the system basically guarantees you'll make contact. "

"Uh huh….Can you dumb it down a little?"

He sighed. "Look at it this way; when you start your motion wait for the tension to build a bit, and when you feel the skill begin to activate, go for it." I nodded looking around the field for another boar to try it out on. Locating one, I drew my blade once more, its leather grip resting in my hands. _Just go for it, huh? I can do that._ I brought the blade up to my shoulder once again both hands griping tightly with anticipation. I felt the tension begin to rise, my blood was pumping, everything seemed to slow down, I could almost make out the sound of blood pumping through my virtual body. If someone asked me how I knew when to release, I wouldn't have been able to give an answer. Something just clicked within me, like all the pieces of a clock working perfectly in sync. I leapt at the boar, crossing the distance faster than I'd ever thought possible. Driving the blade directly into where the heart would have been. As it vanished into polygons I couldn't contain myself, I jumped around like a maniac. "YEAH! WHO DA MAN? I DA MAN! WHOOOOO!" Diavel sweat-dropped. Ignoring him in favor of the screen that had appeared I glanced over it quickly.

CONGRATULATIONS

[EXP 24]

[COL 30]

[ITEMS 3]

It was then that I realized that I didn't even know how to open the menu. "Hey. Items right? So…How would one, you know, open the…uh…menu?"

I could almost see the sweat-drop that time, and if I had to guess, it was the size of a small house." You mean to tell me, we've been in this game 2 hours and you haven't opened your menu once," he asked incredulously. I instantly broke out in a grin, knowing that that was two records I'd broken in a matter of hours.

**A/N:**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Sword Art Online.**

**So yeah, I've wanted to do one of these for a pretty long time but I never really found the inspiration or motivation to actually do it. Honestly I think SAO has ridiculous amount of potential, especially in the FF Community. This isn't my first time writing FF but it has been quite a long time since I've done it. So really if your reading this and you managed to make it all the way down here, I thank you…you beautiful, beautiful person, and I hope you leave a review to let me know how I did. It would mean a lot, but I'm not going to beg. (That's a lie, I'm totally going to beg.)If you like it cool, if you didn't, that's okay too. Just let me know what I can change to make it better. Constructive Criticism is the only good criticism.**

**This will be something of a self-insert, mostly what I would have done had I been given the chance. Of course there's always the chance that Rift will subtlety develop a personality of his own, so... Also Rift is not going to be, for lack of a better term, "A floor clearing bad-ass". I'll go more in depth in the next chapter but for now that's it…Thank you.**

**Next chapter will probably be up, within the next week or two. The updates will definitely be erratic for a while.**

**Edit: Fixed some grammatical errors, fine tuned some sentences. 8/8**


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